Spitting out a mouthful of sand, I pushed myself up. The waves were nudging at my ankles as the tide began to come in, but aside from that little issue, I was all fuckin' smiles.
"Got it!"
Jumping up to my feet, I turned and splashed over to the mer, only to notice that he was missing his tail! He was lying on his belly in the surf, watching me like a hawk.
"Then the rumors were true. Your kind can somehow change into humans for camouflage."
I would have stared longer if the waves weren't seriously moving in. Guess it was time to go... with a merman.
Hmm, but how to get the darn thing into my truck without being bitten?
"Okay, I need to get you into a truck... that's in the parking lot. Without you biting my head off."
Considering he wasn't going anywhere, I decided to quickly run up the beach to get my truck. Thank god it was pretty useful in sand. I had some pretty nice tires that made driving on the beach a piece of cake.
The run back up to the parking lot killed my feet with the constant shifting sand beneath them, but as soon as I got there, I climbed into my truck and started carefully driving my way down toward the mer. There were only a few paths, which led back down to the waterline, that were safe to use, and if a driver didn't go along the sandy gravel roads, their car often got stuck and that was one towing nightmare I didn't want to have to deal with... for a third time.
What? I rush when something in the water catches my interest.
Well, this time I actually took the darn slow path so I was able to get within a few yards of the guy without getting stuck. With a slightly frustrated huff, I jumped down from my silver Durango and hurried to scoop the mer out of the encroaching waves. He thrashed a little and sank his teeth into my upper left arm, but I still managed to get him into the back of the truck, then slammed the back part into place before he could do a thing about it. Once he was in, I yanked the black tarp-like covering I used to seal up the bed and snapped it down so, hopefully, the mer didn't manage to get out. Just in case, though, I jumped back in the cab and drove as fast as I could after getting through the sand, speeding straight toward home.
When I was forced to stop at a light, I fished my phone from my back pocket and dialed my roommate's number. He was going to be the biggest hurdle to getting this guy back into the ocean once he was healed.
"Hnn... Park? You know I sleep during the day."
"It's almost eight o'clock."
"Fine. What do ya want?"
The light turned green, and I carefully eased my truck to accelerate. The whole drive I was trying to be sure that I didn't jar the mer too much since he was already injured badly enough as it was.
"I, uh. Well. I've got a um..."
"Spit it out. Three seconds."
"I-I'm bringing home something you can't tell anyone about."
"Well, that's descriptive."
"Dammit, just get the pool ready. You don't have anything in it right now, right?"
"Of course not. Just the fish I've been working on for the past month or two. Nothing important or anything."
The sarcasm in his voice had my eyes rolling.
"Listen, just... I need the pool, and I'm going to be back in like, ten minutes. So please, just, I don't know, have the back door open at least so I can get inside quickly?"
"Fine, but you're cooking dinner tonight and it better not mess with my experiment."
"Tch, fine. Bye."
I hung up before he could tell me what exactly I would be cooking, but knowing Jay, it was going to be the most complex meal he could find with the poor amount of ingredients we usually kept in the fridge. After four more lights and a few turns down narrow streets, I finally pulled my silver truck into a long, half-moon driveway, then straight into the backyard. I could hear an angry shout from the front as Jay ran after me to complain about his beautiful lawn, but hmph, it was far more important that I park right next to the pool area. As I was pulling to a stop, he ran around to the driver's side and slammed his fist against my window several times, making me growl in annoyance.
Don't damage my truck!
I shoved the door open, forcing him to jump back or get smacked in the face, hard.
"I know you're pissed about your yard."
"Pissed? I just had it redone Saturday."
Well, at least he had three days to enjoy not having tire tracks in it?
"Will you just open the damn door to the pool area, please?"
As I spoke, I was quickly making my way around to the back of my truck. He followed, of course. He couldn't just do what I asked him to... ever.
"Listen, I'll give you twenty dollars if you just open the damn screen door."
That made him stop babbling for a moment, and, amen! He ran over and pulled the thing open. I got the snaps off the back part and tossed the tarp somewhere behind me on the ground to retrieve later. Right then, my full attention was focused on getting the bleeding mer out of the darn net and into my arms. When I hopped down from my truck with the mer, I could literally feel my roommate's eyes on me from where he stood just inside the pool area. I glanced sideways at him as I ran inside, and it looked pretty much like his jaw was on the ground in shock.
"Wh-What are you doing w-with some random dude?"
Ignoring him for the moment, I literally jumped into the pool with the mer in my arms. The action drew a screech from Jay, but screw his experiment. That sounded mean after he'd reset his sleeping schedule and gotten up at odd hours of the night to work on it for the past two months, but this was more important. When I surfaced, without the mer, Jayson literally flipped.
"Dude, what the fuck? Get the guy out of there. Jesus, he was bleeding. Th-There's blood everywhere. What are you doing? He's gotta go to the hospital. Oh damn, did you kill him? A-Are you trying to feed him to my fish or something 'cause I swear I'm one second away from calling the police."
Sigh.
Swimming over to the edge, I quickly pulled myself up and out of the water, being sure to get a few feet away and out of reach of the mer before finally turning to talk to Jayson.
"Look. If you call the cops, then he will be dead."
My roommate stomped over, nicely muscled arms crossing over his well-defined chest.
What? He looks good... but he definitely doesn't bat for my team.
"L-Look, you know that thing that I didn't want you to tell anyone about?"
His brows rose, but he slowly nodded.
"U-Uhm... w-well... he's a... um..."
His eyes narrowed slightly, making me quickly spit out the word I dreaded saying to him.
"M-Mer."
Jay's entire demeanor went lax. Of course he didn't believe me. Hell, I wouldn't even believe myself if I hadn't been the one to catch it. When I returned my attention to him, I realized he was striding toward the pool with a determined but pissed-off look on his face.
"W-Wait. It's dangerous."
Especially since it's hurt.
He turned around a few feet from the water, making me almost stumble into him. His hands grabbed my shoulders, preventing us from colliding but also keeping me where I stood.
"I know you're pissed about me taking over the pool for three months, but dammit, couldn't you come up with something less dangerous than hurting a damned guy just to ruin my experiment?"
"I-I-I didn't hurt him. He was being attacked by sharks a-and then Ken shot him."
Err, that didn't seem to have helped the situation, judging from the new disgusted look on Jay's face.
"H-he's not a damn human."
Jay growled and shoved me back a few steps so he could get the 'body' out of the pool, but when he turned, I knew he saw it too. The mer was awake now, and his eyes loomed just above the surface, glaring at us. My roommate seemed hesitant for a moment, but then he straightened up again and stomped over to the edge of the pool. When he pointed at the mer and began yelling, I kinda, well, snickered.
"You! Get out of there, now. Obviously this was some stupid prank, and thanks to you agreeing to it, my experiment is going to have to be redone."
I watched as the mer began to make the water around his head bubble, no doubt doing something similar to hissing right beneath the surface. Actually, I could almost hear it, even over the loud chirps and croaks of the nightlife in the pond near the forest line in the backyard.
"J-Jay... you need to back up. This isn't a joke. He's really a mâ?"
His fist connected with my right eye, knocking me to the ground from sheer surprise.
H-He just.
I wanted to yell at him, but when I noticed the mer beginning to reach for his leg, I swallowed my anger and jumped forward, grabbing his arm and yanking just in time to keep him from being dragged backward into the pool. He ended up off-balance and falling right on top of me, but he was smart enough to jerk his head toward the sound of a now, very audible hiss.
"Holy... shit."
"It's usually not holy, but indeed. I told you I wasn't lying."
He looked from me, to the mer clawing at the concrete, then back to me.
"You weren't... lying."
"Again, no."
While on any other occasion I would be milking this situation to keep him where he was since he was basically my dream guy with a permanent dirty blond bed head, soft brown eyes, and a body to match any model in a Calvin Klein magazine ad, this definitely wasn't the time for that, though.
"Um..."
Jayson looked down at me, then quickly jumped to his feet, easily pulling my smaller body up without much effort seconds later.
"Sorry... and uh, sorry, too, about punching you."
We were both silent for a moment before turning our attention back to the mer. He had receded back into the water, but his short dark hair and eyes were still visible mixed within the seaweed that floated atop the murky water in the pool.
"So... uh, can he walk?"
"No. At least, I doubt it. I pulled a seriously big shark hook out of his tail fin, and when he changed back, his right foot was just as injured."
He whipped his gaze toward me in shock.
"Y-You grabbed its tail?"
"Uh, not my brightest idea? But I had to get it out. His tail is badly infected. He had been ripping open Ken's nets to get food, but he's still definitely underweight."
"Yeah, I noticed that. Okay, so, you said Ken shot him, too?"
Jay sighed, running a shaky hand through his spiky blond hair. He was a scientist, one of the best marine ones I knew, but he definitely didn't look the part most of the time.
"Yeah, he got his right shoulder... and the mer got my left, haha."
He glanced down, easily finding the bite marks on my left arm. Jay grabbed said arm, just below the bite, and promptly yanked me inside through the open sliding glass door.
"This needs to be disinfected immediately, you idiot."
I was stumbling to keep up as fatigue set in. My body was tired after having just done a lot more physical activity than normal in such a short period of time. I'm pretty sure Jayson could tell as he nudged me to my knees and forced me to lean over the bathtub, arm extended beneath the warming water from the faucet.
"You really need to come to the gym with me some time. You're practically falling over from exhaustion."
I had to rest my forehead on the cold porcelain to keep my mind awake enough to respond coherently.
"You always say that."
"And you never listenâperoxide."
My body instantly tensed, but that was the only warning I got as he poured a good amount onto my injured arm.
"Hsss, owwww."
"Oh hush, man up a little. This stuff barely feels like a bug bite."
"Dick."
"Yup, I got one. You may be missing yours, though. Haven't seen it in a while."
My cheeks flushed at his words, and I was silently thankful that the lights weren't on in the bathroom.
"Alright, hold your arm there for a sec."
"Yes, mom," I groaned, snickering even as he smacked the back of my head. I felt him begin to bandage my arm as silence fell between us. His hands were gentle but made sure that the bandage was secure after each wrap.
"You know... if he has such bad injuries, he may die soon."
A tired breath slipped from my lips as I replied quietly. "I know, but I just couldn't leave him on the beach."
"Many people would pay good money to have him."
My head jerked up, eyes glaring into the dim light at Jay. "We are not selling him to be experimented on."
"Parker."
My breath hitched as he said my name, making me unable to interrupt him as he continued to speak.
"You said it yourself, his tail injury is very infected. We can't help him with that, especially considering how aggressive he is."
I knew he was telling the truth, and it sucked, because I didn't want to hear it. I was hoping he'd say that the mer would be fine now that it was out of the ocean, but it was a known fact by marine biologists that if you take something out of the ocean and bring it into captivity, there was a high likelihood that it won't survive. When I didn't reply, he gave my head a soft pat and stood up, helping me back to my feet so we could go check on the mer.
"Think about it tonight. I don't doubt that he'll unfortunately get experimented on, but at least if you pick the right place, they'll take care of him and be sure he isn't mistreated."
Stepping out onto the patio, I took in a deep breath of the humid night air and nodded.
"I'll give it some thought."
Jay nodded over his shoulder at me, then returned his attention to the pool. It was kind of funny that he would be the voice of reason. Heck, in most cases, he always was, even though I was five years older at twenty-six. Stepping up next to him, we watched the mer watch us, an unspoken excitement moving between Jayson and me.
"I'll give you two days, Park. His foot looked really bad, so either we need to find a way to sedate him and get a doctor who won't snitch in to help him, or he needs to go somewhere that can possibly save his life."
My head bobbed slowly with a nod of acknowledgement before I felt his right arm wrap around my shoulders and pull me against his side in a comfortable side-hug.
"Go get some rest, okay? I'll take a rain check on dinner... and I promise I won't call anyone tonight. And, since your boy just ruined my experiment, I suppose I'll watch him until you wake up."
There was a loud splash in the pool suddenly, then a faint patch of darkness spread to the surface. I glanced up at Jay with a hesitant smile, getting a roll of his eyes in response.
"I'm just going to pretend he didn't just eat one of my important, imported, research fish."
Giving a quiet chuckle, I wrapped my arms around him for a quick hug before darting back inside for some much needed sleep.